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I've played 160 ranked games so far this season. I got from the starting rank up to the last irrevocable pretty easily. Then I managed to scrape up to rank 8.
Then fell back to rank 12, then spent another 120 games bouncing between 12 and 9. Earlier this week though I smashed through to Rank 5, losing a handful of games, saving stars in half of them in. It was like magic. I spent most of the games as the Scharnhorst or Helena, then switched to Atlanta just as I began the rise up the ranks. I got a bunch of good teams, and didn't have to carry too many games (although I did get one game where I finished it off in a 1v1 with another cruiser).
I've since lost the only two games I got to play in Rank 5 so I'm back down to Rank 6. In 2nd top tier game the enemy team was three sinops, two payfasts, a haida and a shiratsuyu. And all it took to lose was one of DD's deciding to run away from the middle of the map so we had no spotting. One of their Sinop's got 4 kills, including my Atlanta as he came out from behind an island about 6km away and wrecked me, after I'd just taken out one of the Belfasts and driven away the Haida.
I'm really not sure if I can rank out, I'm really not confident I'll get good matchmaking again.

They should have just made them take a 7th equipment slot so they could be better balanced.
Also, what's the point of a UU that just gets nerfed until it's pointless? Lol enjoy regrinding multiple lines to get something WG will nerf if it's actually useful.

Playing ranked this season I watched my team nearly throw away a 5v2 while holding all three caps, after I'd died getting rid of a DD and a Cruiser. It ended with our DD vs their IJN torpboat in the middle cap and being lucky the DD had a smoke & hydro left, letting him kill the other DD to win the game. It was also the game that I needed to get to Rank 5, so doubly frustrating to watch the team.
And then the usual idiots losing games in minutes. Had a ranked game where we capped A & B easily, only for our sole DD to yolo into the northern C flag, get obliterated in 3 minutes despite being told to turn around, followed by a cruiser pushing the mid-south area for no reason and getting smashed by focus fire while he's giving broadside to 2 battleships. The best thing about that was our DD blaming us for "not supporting" his yolo suicide against 5 enemy ships all hidden behind islands that prevented us from shooting them.
Too many players have no idea how the scoring works. You can tell them in chat "just run away, we win in 30 seconds" and they have no idea what you're talking about. In Ranked Sprint, hardly anyone was intelligent enough to realise that if you get the cap, you win on points almost immediately if you stop the enemy getting into it. I reckon loads of people have no idea how concealment works either, or ship angling.
Most gamers treat PVP games as team deatchmatch. Objectives are irrelevant to them, and they don't care about tactics.

My views, as a free to play account:
Silver - The cost of buying ships and higher tier upgrades is a massive 'pain point' when playing as a F2P account. Once you actually have a ship & it's upgrades, you never need to spend anything on it again. At worst, a Tier 10 ship with no premium account might lose some silver in a mediocre/bad match. Actually buying a ship and it's modules, at the high tier, costs upwards of 24 million silver. That is a gigantic amount of silver to have to grind from scratch. So be very judicious in what you spend and upgrade. Some ships you don't need to buy the range module. Or the torpedo module. Some ships you don't really need the 4th, 5th or 6th slots.
Steel - Unless you play clan battles and are a good ranked player you aren't likely to accumulate much of this anyway. Just save it, in case you ever need to convert it to coal to get something from the armoury that might otherwise vanish. Hopefully WG will add somethings to armoury to make less amounts of steel having things worth buying.
Coal - Save it all. Spend it on a Tier 9 Premium ship first. A Tier 9 ship is (barring a handful of exceptions) the best way for someone to make silver, if they're good with their ship. Depending on how much you keep ships and pay for upgrades, the costs of higher tier ships are extremely high in silver cost, and there's only so much you can do to get silver. Once you have high tier ships, the special upgrades are handy for some ships. If you are set on playing a new line to completion, buying a 35k captain if it's good for that line (eg, a 35k Coal Captain with Expert Marksman for Battleship lines) can be worth getting if you don't have a ship target.
Daily Containers - Always More Resources, for coal. Always. The rest are garbage. Occasionally picking the Try Your Luck for a Supercontainer is fine but don't do it regularly, the chances aren't a huge improvement.
Free XP - Use it on two things: Skipping a T9 grind or Buying a FXP ship. Either way, you're not going to use this for a long time. My preference is to add another high tier Premium FXP to your collection (eg, the T9 Alaska), and then start saving it again to skip a T9 ship grind.
Dubs - Between supercontainers and events it is very much possible to save up enough to get a free mid-tier ship. I personally got an Atlanta with Dubs despite being a totally F2P account and used it a hell of a lot in T7 Ranked and Narai scenario for grinding silver. Don't spend it on anything else.
Research Bureau - F2P players shouldn't get tempted into regrinding lines, I feel like it's a big waste of time you've already invested into grinding lines in the first place. I bought 10,000 RB worth of a single flag and then sold them all to help pay for a Kremlin.
Captain XP - Save everything until you have enough to push an 18 point Captain to 19 points. Small amounts to get a captain to a new skill are okay, just don't over do it. The only thing I"d also spend on is getting a Captain to 10 points if I need them for Ranked or an event. Captain XP is like a snowball rolling down a mountain. It starts slowly, but speeds up at ever greater rates.
Permacamos - Any event or collection that gives you a permacamo is extremely good to consider grinding. Getting a Tier 10 permacamo is the holy grail. I have a Halloween camo on my Des Moines. I also have a bunch of new year & halloween camos on lower tier ships. I also played a lot of Bismarck before I got my T9 premiums because I have a permacamo for it.
Campaigns & Collections - Remember that Campaigns you can repeat missions! Campaigns & Collections often give nice rewards and something to play for. Just keep in mind for collections that not all of them drop components in daily crate drops.